PROLOUGE: "Truth"
Alazam Durai had spent the entire afternoon pondering his decision with doubt, and now as he shifted uneasily in his stiff, highbacked chair gazing out at the entire historical community of Ivalice, he was quite sure that he had made the wrong one. He flipped through the thin papers of his speech nervously, hardly noticing as even the chairs near the back of the lecture hall filled gradually. The low din of whispers, both excited and skeptical slowly began to die out and eyes turned towards the aged man at the front of the room. Alazam sighed and scanned the crowd for familiar faces.
'If only they knew what I am about to tell them...' he thought ironically, 'Maybe then they wouldn't seem so... eager...'
He shouldn't have hyped it up so. He made a mistake bragging about his discovery as being 'The Most Important Historical Discovery in Ivalice since the Germonik Scriptures'. He wasn't so sure anymore that destroying seven hundred years of history as he was about to do was such a wise idea. After all, most of the names he would be discussing in length hadn't even graced the pages of a textbook before. They were lost; swallowed up by time and human folly. Alazam wondered, perhaps it had been better that way.
He eyed his speech once more, then he stood. The entire room fell quiet, bombarding Alazam with the weight of their expectation. So many would want to prove him wrong, perhaps even insist that he should be burnt at the stake for heresy, as medievil as the practice was. 'Well,' he chuckled inwardly, 'I won't be the first to burn for what I'm about to reveal'.
He checked his courgae once more, then, with more certainty that he had thought himself capable of, began: "Everyone here knows the History of the Lion War, I assume." There was a low rumble of agreement. Alazam answered for them, "Of course you do. Even a child could recite the story of the stable boy Delita Hyral and his heroic rise throughout the ranks of Goltana's army until, finally, at the War's End he married the beautiful princess Ovelia and restored order to the land as King."
'So far so good...' thought Alazam, 'But now here comes the hard part...'
"Of course we all know that story... but how many here know the story of Ramza Beoulve?" silence, "Ah ha. Truth is subjective, my dear friends. History is not necessarily exact accounts of the events of the time rather than what events a historian chooses to pass down. Everyone knows the story of Delita Hyral the stable boy, but no one has ever heard of Ramza Beoulve. Well, I'll tell you who this mysterious induvidual was. He was the last of a highly repected family of Nobels during the Fifty Year and Lion Wars, the family, in fact, that history's favorite hero Delita Hyral was raised by. Ramza Beoulve was Delita's best friend and, by accounts that have been surpressed for nearly a millenia, a hero in his own right. Perhaps, despite what we have been taught by 'history's truth', Ramza was the REAL hero of the Lion War."
Alazam paced, attempting not to falter. His audience was captivated. If he made it past the inroduction, he would have them, but this was crucial. Already, he could see eyebrows raising. He had to catch them in the story before it was too late. He stopped in the center of the stage and cleared his throat loudly.
"The 'Durai Reports', telling a rather alternative side to the story of The Lion War, have been hidden from us by the Glabados Chruch since the war's end. They have recently been released under new laws robbing the Church of it's authority over such historic documents in intrest of social evolution. They were most reluctant to let this one go, but after a lengthy legal battle, I managed to obtain them and have spent the past three years studying and translating them. I am here today, ladies and gentlemen, to tell you only my findings. I ask no commitment from you and offer you no bias. You are simply here to listen to a story about a boy named Ramza..."
Alazam Durai had spent the entire afternoon pondering his decision with doubt, and now as he shifted uneasily in his stiff, highbacked chair gazing out at the entire historical community of Ivalice, he was quite sure that he had made the wrong one. He flipped through the thin papers of his speech nervously, hardly noticing as even the chairs near the back of the lecture hall filled gradually. The low din of whispers, both excited and skeptical slowly began to die out and eyes turned towards the aged man at the front of the room. Alazam sighed and scanned the crowd for familiar faces.
'If only they knew what I am about to tell them...' he thought ironically, 'Maybe then they wouldn't seem so... eager...'
He shouldn't have hyped it up so. He made a mistake bragging about his discovery as being 'The Most Important Historical Discovery in Ivalice since the Germonik Scriptures'. He wasn't so sure anymore that destroying seven hundred years of history as he was about to do was such a wise idea. After all, most of the names he would be discussing in length hadn't even graced the pages of a textbook before. They were lost; swallowed up by time and human folly. Alazam wondered, perhaps it had been better that way.
He eyed his speech once more, then he stood. The entire room fell quiet, bombarding Alazam with the weight of their expectation. So many would want to prove him wrong, perhaps even insist that he should be burnt at the stake for heresy, as medievil as the practice was. 'Well,' he chuckled inwardly, 'I won't be the first to burn for what I'm about to reveal'.
He checked his courgae once more, then, with more certainty that he had thought himself capable of, began: "Everyone here knows the History of the Lion War, I assume." There was a low rumble of agreement. Alazam answered for them, "Of course you do. Even a child could recite the story of the stable boy Delita Hyral and his heroic rise throughout the ranks of Goltana's army until, finally, at the War's End he married the beautiful princess Ovelia and restored order to the land as King."
'So far so good...' thought Alazam, 'But now here comes the hard part...'
"Of course we all know that story... but how many here know the story of Ramza Beoulve?" silence, "Ah ha. Truth is subjective, my dear friends. History is not necessarily exact accounts of the events of the time rather than what events a historian chooses to pass down. Everyone knows the story of Delita Hyral the stable boy, but no one has ever heard of Ramza Beoulve. Well, I'll tell you who this mysterious induvidual was. He was the last of a highly repected family of Nobels during the Fifty Year and Lion Wars, the family, in fact, that history's favorite hero Delita Hyral was raised by. Ramza Beoulve was Delita's best friend and, by accounts that have been surpressed for nearly a millenia, a hero in his own right. Perhaps, despite what we have been taught by 'history's truth', Ramza was the REAL hero of the Lion War."
Alazam paced, attempting not to falter. His audience was captivated. If he made it past the inroduction, he would have them, but this was crucial. Already, he could see eyebrows raising. He had to catch them in the story before it was too late. He stopped in the center of the stage and cleared his throat loudly.
"The 'Durai Reports', telling a rather alternative side to the story of The Lion War, have been hidden from us by the Glabados Chruch since the war's end. They have recently been released under new laws robbing the Church of it's authority over such historic documents in intrest of social evolution. They were most reluctant to let this one go, but after a lengthy legal battle, I managed to obtain them and have spent the past three years studying and translating them. I am here today, ladies and gentlemen, to tell you only my findings. I ask no commitment from you and offer you no bias. You are simply here to listen to a story about a boy named Ramza..."